


Apo Koinou

by Ashura



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Drama, Friendship, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 15:55:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashura/pseuds/Ashura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sentence with one subject and two predicates, moving two directions at once.  Todd was in so very much trouble, and thought Neil Perry might be both the best and worst thing to ever happen in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Apo Koinou

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kiitos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiitos/gifts).



Three days after Neil Perry dies, Todd wakes up with lines of Shakespeare going through his head. _Brief as the lightning in the collied night._ He stirs fitfully; it's the middle of the night and only the faintest gleam of dismal, dusky grey is yet beginning to saturate the windowshade. He can just make out the bulky shadows on the other side of the room—the solid shapes of Neil's trunks, a box of his books, his typewriter, all stacked against the opposite wall. It's a poor replacement for Neil himself, for the lump of blanket Todd has become so used to seeing in the other bed, but he still finds himself reluctant to give the things up. Today Neil's parents will come and take it all away, and the room will be empty but for Todd and his weakness, his uselessness, his folders of Latin notes and scraps of unfinished poetry. 

_Think but this, and all is mended—that you have but slumbered here..._ Todd stares at the empty space in the room, his eyes determinedly wide, his body perfectly still, and tries to will Neil back into being. If he goes back to sleep, he can wake up and it will all have been a dream. Neil will toss a pair of folded-up socks at him and laugh at him and tell him to get out of bed. He'll smile and dance around the room like a madman and won't be dead. But Todd has tried this already and it hasn't worked yet; he just wakes up in the morning, or the middle of the night, and the empty bed is standing there, stripped of sheets and pillows, mocking his anguish. 

He closes his eyes just so he doesn't have to look at its faint shadowy shape, but he can see it even more clearly with them shut. The image is engraved permanently on the back of his eyelids, and not even the tears he pretends not to notice can wash it away. 

* * * 

It was Charlie who broke the news—of course it was Charlie. Todd no longer remembers what he'd been dreaming about, only that in the first moment he'd wondered what bizarre prank Nuwanda was going to pull this time and why it required getting out of bed in the middle of the night. But when he didn't go away, Todd took a closer look. His eyes were red, their usual mischievous gleam completely absent, and his cheeks were blotchy where he'd been rubbing his sleeve across them. 

Todd's stomach sank, clenching into complicated knots mid-fall. Charlie had kept the others away; Knox, Meeks and Pitts were huddled together at the door to his room, watching him. 

_Neil's dead._

He felt the words more than he heard them. They paralysed him; kept him from moving or speaking or even breathing. It had to be a lie, a joke, a prank, but not even Charlie would joke about that. _Especially_ not Charlie, who looked like he didn't have any idea what to say either, or what to do. Todd didn't think he'd ever seen him look lost before.

“What—no--” was the extent of Todd's words. He was never good at words at the best of times, and he choked on them now. The world spun in dizzying loops until Charlie's tearstreaked face was just a sorrowful blur, the walls closing in around him and blending into each other. He flailed, and Charlie held him up. The others came into the room then, all sitting down on Todd's bed and carefully avoiding Neil's. No one said anything else—they just sat in stunned, miserable silence until time forced the horrible night to give way into an uninspiring dawn. 

Charlie kept checking on him, after that. Neil had been his best friend, and now Todd, left behind, was his responsibility. He took it seriously. He was always there at the edges, close in shared grief, with much of Neil's same talent for knowing just what to do and what to say. He fed Todd snow to stop his heaving sobs and take the acid taste of vomit from his mouth, held Todd when he fell down, let him scream his grief into the frozen winter sky. He kept the rest of the world at bay, and kept their friends from asking questions. 

And then he was gone, too. 

* * * 

Mr Nolan is not the replacement teacher Todd would have chosen. He shrivels into his chair, feeling the constant accusing weight of those flinty eyes always on him, reminding him that he is guilty not only of survival, but of betrayal. A thousand times a day he replays the scene in Nolan's office in his head; each time he finds something new and better to say to make them all understand. He finds the strength to say _No, I won't sign this_ , finds a part of himself that is better than the frightened child who gives in and sends an innocent man to—what, exactly? Whatever happens to Mr Keating after this, Todd has no idea and no one is willing to tell him. Perhaps he'll go back to London, but who'll hire him after this? Teaching, the one thing he loves, is ripped away from him.

Acting, the thing Neil loved, ripped away too.

And Neil ripped away from Todd, and the cycle doesn't seem like it's going to stop. The storm keeps swirling, the snow keeps falling, and it never, ever stops. When Nolan calls on Todd to answer a question, he doesn't even hear it. He only hears _traitor_ and _worm_ and something about the Pritchard textbook and he doesn't care, because he's thinking poetry never brought anybody happiness anyway. 

He huddles in his desk while Cameron reads. Cameron, he thinks, isn't feeling guilty about any of it. He'd only ever been part of the club because he worshipped Neil; with that tie broken he'd found himself flung loose. Todd hears his calm voice, reading out of a chapter they've already torn out of the book even after getting Keating fired and Nuwanda expelled, and wishes he had the courage to punch him, too. 

It's only when he hears Keating's voice that he really comes to life again, the guilt swirling through him like it means to swallow him. 

'They made everybody sign it--' Desperation can make even a mute man speak, it turns out. He's just so very conscious that this is the very last chance, the last moment he'll be able to apologise. To Keating, to Neil, to Nuwanda, to himself. 

'I do believe you, Todd.' Keating's footsteps heading toward the door; he doesn't even register Nolan shouting at him or Cameron still trying to read. It doesn't matter. He wants to pay a fitting tribute, to do more than just stammer out his guilt, more than scream Neil's name, more than say _I'm sorry_. 

Months of Neil telling him to get more stirred up. Years of staying silent. Desperation, or maybe Neil's memory, finally bring the lightning—inspiration strikes and Todd, aching with it, taut as a rubber band pulled all the way back and just before breaking, acts before he can think. 

' _O Captain! My captain!_ '

Walt Whitman wrote that poem about the death of Abraham Lincoln. They've been using it as a kind of joke, but it isn't, now. _Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills!_ And for him, Todd Anderson has broken his silence and is standing on his desk, alone, in the middle of an English classroom in a Vermont boarding school. 

He stares straight at Mr Keating, his hands shaking, willing his apology to be accepted, his message to be understood. He only registers anything else happening when Knox's voice echoes him, and for the first time in days he feels a surge of a feeling that isn't despair. Maybe he's not alone in the whole of the world after all.

' _O captain! My captain!'_

It keeps happening. All around him, his friends and comrades and fellow students are rising—not all, but enough. Todd finally really notices Nolan's shouting, but from this angle, he seems smaller, ineffectual. Cameron, who will never get it, is just looking around in confusion like he doesn't understand. Todd is sure he doesn't. 

'Thank you, boys.' There's an unmistakable catch in Mr Keating's voice when he repeats, 'Thank you.' Todd feels, for the first and last time, that he might have said enough. His point is made, at least, his penance accepted. 

He's thrumming too much with emotion to care that he's definitely going to get expelled. 

* * * 

Neil, as Puck, was actually amazing. Todd should have known this by now, as well as he knew the part he'd been running lines for since September, but actually seeing Neil onstage was entirely different. That didn't keep him from beaming, smugly and a bit proudly, when Knox leaned over and whispered, 'He's good! He's really good!' 

He was, and Todd couldn't tear his eyes away from him. Neil was already graced with a lithe, fey beauty, a lunatic laugh, and a strange manic grace, but as Puck all that was heightened. But there was more—he was in his true element, brimming over with joy, alight with passion.

And Todd, so used by then to being in tune with Neil's moods, could tell exactly when things went wrong. He was probably the only one to notice when Neil missed his cue, half-stumbling onto the stage a beat or two late, and that only because Todd knew Puck's part by now as well as Neil did. It was a subtle change—a dimming, a flutter of nervousness easily attributed to his character's fairy mishaps—but Todd noticed, and it was instinct to take a moment, once Puck was off into the wings again, to look around for what might have caused it.

He saw Neil's father, standing stern in the back of the room—not taking a seat, not enjoying the show, just standing there like an executioner. _But he was supposed to be in Chicago._ That's what Neil had said—he'd lied to everyone in the end, everyone but Todd, who sat through the rest of Act II with a growing feeling of impending dread knotting in his gut. 

By the middle of Act III he'd managed, if not to forget, then at least to lose himself in the play again. It wasn't hard; not even the knowledge that there'd be hell to pay later could permanently dim the brilliance of Neil and his captivating Puck. Knowing the part didn't seem to hinder Todd's ability to be surprised by it, and Neil's capering took his breath away.

But then the play ended. Neil stood alone in a single light, his leaf-covered hands held out in supplication. _Think but this, and all is mended—that you have but slumbered here, while these visions did appear_. Suddenly Neil's desperation felt to Todd like a tangible thing, and the entire epilogue became a plea to the man standing in the back of the theatre, ready to take it all away.

That would be the image he clung to later, when he chose a last sight of Neil. It wasn't really the last. Afterward there was Neil being half-dragged through a crowd of people who only wanted to wish him well, despair growing in his eyes. And the last—the actual last—image of him that Todd ever had, heartbroken through a snow-frosted car window, his eyes searching out Todd's with the desperation of a trapped animal as the car drove away. 

* * * 

For most of Christmas vacation, Todd wonders if he should kill himself too. His father managed to pull some strings and he's not going to be expelled, for which everyone seems to think he should feel grateful, or at least relieved. But all he can feel is dread for having to return to his empty room, thick with Neil's absence. He misses Knox and Meeks and Pitts a bit, but he misses Charlie more, and he won't be back at Welton either. 

If anyone tries to make him room with Cameron, Todd thinks one of them really _will_ die. If he gets that far. He hasn't decided. Mostly he thinks he should shoot himself to make a statement, but only after writing a good long letter explaining everything so they're not left with all the questions and chances for scapegoats that Neil's death presented. He even starts to write it:

> _Dear Mom and Dad and everybody,_
> 
> _I guess you're wondering why I've done this. I know you'll come up with all kinds of reasons. You might even find somebody to blame, like they did with Neil. But the truth is, the only one to blame is me. I'm a coward. I should have stood up to you when you made me sign the paper that got Mr Keating fired. I should have done more to protect Neil from his family—I should have run away with him to the ends of the earth where you'd all be disappointed in us but nobody would have to die. You tried to raise me to do the right thing, but I've been swallowed up. I should have been better, braver. But I'm not, and this is all I can do._

He stops because his tears are dropping on the paper, making it thin and smudgey as the ink bleeds. It's stupid; he's gotten so used to crying he doesn't even notice it anymore, though he supposes writing your own suicide note is probably one of those times you're expected to cry. He doesn't know—Neil didn't leave a note and he's never met anyone who died that way before. (If Neil had left a note, he wonders what it would have said. The only comfort Todd can really take there is that it had been a sudden, rash decision; Neil was not lying to him and would have said goodbye.)

But Neil was always rash and brave, and Todd is still a coward. For once he's relieved that his family doesn't really think about him, because they leave him alone and don't ask any embarrassing, awkward questions. After the first few attempts, even his mother stops trying to get him to come out of his room.

* * * 

Neil had gone to Keating for advice and come back almost in tears. 'I'm trapped,' he said, and it made Todd's heart clench to hear it. 

'Keating couldn't help?' 

Neil threw himself down on his bed, his face buried in his pillow. 'Said I have to talk to him, show how I feel. Talk about my passion.' He thumped the pillow hard, turned his tear-streaked face up to look at Todd fiercely. 'Like that's going to work. He doesn't know my father.' As if that were a revelation, he repeated it--'he doesn't know my father. It's not his fault, he just doesn't know what to do.'

Todd crept over to the bed, sat on the edge of it, and fumbled for Neil's hand. He had so little to offer. 'Do you?' 

Neil shrugged. 'He'll be in Chicago. I just won't tell him.' He pulled Todd down on top of him, kissing him hard—an act of defiance as much as distraction. 'There are already all kinds of things I don't tell him.' 

Todd, where Neil was concerned, was never difficult to convince, and since his first and only attempt at temperance had met with accusation (he still hears sometimes, _Jesus, Todd, who's side are you on?_ ) he had long since given it up. He reached for Neil's belt, tugged open his trousers, and turned himself to the more fruitful task of easing away some of his (lover, boyfriend, beloved) roommate's tears and the cornered feeling that caused them. 

A little while later they lay boneless and sticky and half-dressed, passing a cigarette back and forth. Todd had his arms wrapped loosely around Neil, whose head was pillowed on his chest. Lazy puffs of smoke floated into the air above their heads; Neil looked like he was watching it. Todd was watching Neil.

'My parents are going to disown me,' Neil said, terribly casually, as if he were remarking that the gravy served at dinner was especially lumpy that day. Todd didn't know what to say, and just kissed his hair. 'I mean, if I run off to be an actor, now or any other time. I'm going to lose them anyway.' He tilted his head back, dark eyes peering up at Todd. 'You should come with me.'

Todd found that what had seemed like a logical progression of thought had rapidly derailed, and stammered. 'Wha—what?'

But Neil was used to him stammering, and reached up to touch his face. 'You. Should come with me. We can run off together. California, I was thinking. I mean, Ginsberg ended up in Denver, but California's where you go to be an actor. And you could, I don't know, write poetry or run cameras or something. I figure my parents will hate me either way, so kill two birds with one stone, right?'

Half of Todd found the whole idea thrilling, if unrealistic; the other half just found it terrifying. 'Wait—what birds?' He'd gone very tense against Neil's body. 'I don't think—we don't need to kill any birds. You can't tell your parents about this, are you crazy?'

'Relax, Todd, Jesus. I'm not telling them.' Neil's body went tense too, the remains of the cigarette crumpled in his hand. 'If we both disappear to the west coast they might figure it out, though, is all.' He reached back to catch Todd's hand and bring it to his lips. 'Relax, okay?'

'Sorry.' Todd shifted, his muscles relaxing, and hid his face in Neil's hair. 'I just—I know I disappoint my parents, but I don't want to lose them, you know? We can't just run away from home.'

For a moment, Neil was silent. His breath ghosted warm and even over the back of Todd's hand, his fingers a little clammy, brushing over Todd's palm. 'I know,' he said. 'It was just a stupid fantasy. It's not like keeping secrets from my parents is anything new.' 

'I'm sorry,' Todd said softly, clinging to him. Neil rolled over and kissed him.

'It's okay,' he said, and Todd was never sure if it really was.

* * * 

Todd's parents have gone to a Christmas party and he has the house to himself. He barricades himself in his dad's office so he can phone Charlie, who sounds relieved to hear from him. 

'I'm basically under house arrest,' he admits, 'until they figure out what to do with me. Heard you made quite a scene, Todd. I'm surprised you're not going to be joining me in whatever military school for troubled teenagers they decide to put me in.'

'Yeah,' Todd says awkwardly. 'My dad talked to the right people, or something. I don't know. I think they all decided I was too fragile or something, and losing Neil made me go crazy.'

'Well.' Charlie isn't disagreeing with the assessment, and the long pause makes Todd fidget. 'How are you doing, anyway?'

Todd answers completely honestly, the way he can't anymore with anyone else. 'I keep thinking I should shoot myself.'

The silence on the other end of the phone doesn't last long, but feels as if it stretches into a stunned and tangible thing. 'Please don't.' Charlie's voice is softer, hoarse and muffled, more vulnerable than Todd has ever heard him. 'Neil'd hate it, you know. And I don't think I can go through all this again.'

Though he shouldn't be, Todd finds himself surprised that anyone would care. 'I—okay. I didn't think--' he stumbles over the words, but Charlie's used to that too.

'Write something,' he says, as if imparting a secret. 'Write about Neil. You don't have to show it to anybody. That's what I did.'

'Did it help?' Todd asks.

He can almost see the shake of Charlie's head. 'Not really. Well. Maybe a little.'

'That's what I thought.' 

'Maybe if you--' Charlie begins, and stops. 'Sorry. I'm being summoned. The Powers that Be have decreed my phone time be terminated. I'll try to call you later. Take care of yourself, Todd, okay? And don't do anything stupid.'

'Fine advice from you,' Todd says, but he smiles when he does. 'Thanks, though. Merry Christmas, Charlie.'

'It's Nuwanda,' Charlie says, and hangs up.

* * * 

Todd was reading Byron by the lake when Charlie cornered him, flopping down onto the wooden bench in a boneless sprawl. Todd shot him a sideways look, but stayed quiet. Whatever Charlie was going to say, he'd do on his own time. 

And he did. 'I get it, you know. How you feel.'

That threw Todd for a bit of a loop. 'Nuwanda, how would _you_ know how I feel?' He was everything Todd wasn't—daring, funny, charismatic. Todd was sure Charlie wouldn't even know he existed if Neil hadn't insisted on including him.

'Because I've been there,' Charlie answered, matter-of-fact. 'It's easy to be in love with Neil. I think everybody is at some point. He's like that.'

'Wha—what?' It was definitely not what Todd was expecting. He scoffed, unconvincingly. 'I'm not in love with Neil, Nuwanda. I'm not—you know. That kind of guy.'

'Yeah? Not at all?' Charlie's piercing dark eyes were boring holes into Todd's head. 'So you're just sucking his dick because it's better than doing Latin?'

Todd felt his face go flame-red and could do nothing to stop it. 'How did you kn--' he began, but as the words were leaving his lips he saw Charlie's expression change. He _didn't_ know; he was just winding him up to get a reaction because that's what Charlie did. 'I mean, we're not--'

Charlie just said quietly, 'Holy shit.'

Todd was finding it hard to breathe. His fingers dug into the cover of his book till the spine bent, and his chest was heaving, his throat closing up. Charlie's whole face changed again, the surprise wiped away, replace by concern, and he thumped Todd on the back. 'Todd, relax. Breathe. I didn't know you _actually_ were—it's okay, I won't tell anybody, I promise.' 

'Nobody's supposed to know,' Todd stammered out helplessly. They _couldn't_ know; it was far too private a thing, far too secret for even friends to know.

'It's okay,' Charlie repeated. 'Besides, who would I tell? My lips are sealed.' He rubbed at his forehead and then went on. 'I won't ask how it happened or anything.' Even though there was a look on his face like he wanted to. 'Okay? Better?' Todd nodded, though he wasn't actually sure it was. 'Here.' Charlie fished a little black-and-white book out of his back pocket and slipped it in between the pages of Byron, closing Todd's fingers over it. _Howl and Other Poems._ 'Don't get caught with that,' he said, low and serious. 'I think you need it more than I do.'

Charlie was good as his word and didn't bring it up, though sometimes, especially at Dead Poets Society meetings, Todd would catch him watching them. He had taken the book of poems back to his room and read it, just to see what Charlie thought he needed it for, and then he kept on reading till his face was practically on fire. It was poetry, but so different from the lyrical metaphor of the romantics Keating had them reading that it might as well have been a different species. Todd's brain didn't even know how to process lines like _the cock and the asshole are holy_ , but he couldn't put it down for good, either. Neil had come in while he was reading, seen his face, and asked what on earth was wrong with him. 

Todd showed it to him, and Neil read about two lines silently, then climbed on top of his bed, stretched out a hand, and began declaiming--

'Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Crazy in Moloch! Cocksucker in Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch!' 

He got louder and louder with each line, till Todd was half laughing, half shouting at him to shut up, huddled on his bed with his hands over his eyes. Neil was breathless with laughing, and he tossed the book aside and stretched out on the bed with Todd. 'This could definitely be Moloch,' he crowed, and his teeth grazed the back of Todd's shoulder. 'But we're definitely not lacklove and manless. I can think of other things we are.'

'You're definitely crazy,' Todd said, exasperated, and set about shutting him up. 

There was only one other time Charlie ever mentioned what he knew, and given the day he'd had, Todd forgave him. They all thought he'd be expelled, after the stunt with the newspaper article and the phone call from God, but Nolan had paddled him instead. The boys had waited anxiously in the corridor for his return, all their own school careers hanging in the balance. Cameron was terrified, Neil nervous, but Todd found he trusted Charlie's determination to keep a secret. Later in the common room, before the others all arrived to hear Charlie's narration of the whole encounter, Todd saw him wince as he lowered himself gingerly onto a pillow. 

He caught Todd looking at him, and flashed a devilish grin. 'Better me than you,' he said, just loud enough for Todd to hear. 'You wouldn't have given the club away, you can't even form sentences around Nolan. But you'd be so sore, poor Neil wouldn't have any fun.' He waggled his eyebrows. Todd, scandalised threw a cushion at him.

'Shut up. God. Anyway we haven't done _that_ ,' he protested, which was more than anyone including Charlie needed to know, but still a thing he felt compelled to clarify.

Charlie looked utterly unrepentant. 'The cock and the asshole are holy,' he whispered, _sotto voice_ , and an increasingly flustered Todd was saved by the door swinging open as Meeks and Pitts came in, chattering about their radio. 

* * * 

By Christmas Eve, Jeffrey's come home from Harvard and given his parents yet another thing to pay attention to that isn't Todd. His brother is eternally charming, never disappointing, and absolutely deserving of their parents' devotion. He laughs at all their dad's stories, flatters their mother, and brings home a pile of perfectly-wrapped, carefully-chosen Christmas presents. Todd barely gave any consideration to presents, though he thought bitterly it was still more effort than any of them were likely to put in to choosing something for him. 

They've all retired for the night, or at least scattered. Jeffrey's gone to phone his girlfriend in Boston, his parents have gone to their room to read. Todd sits alone on the living room floor in his pyjamas and bathrobe, knees pulled up to his chest, watching the twinkling coloured lights on the Christmas tree. He lets his eyes unfocus slowly, and the lights become blurry, dancing flickers of colour, shifting at the edges of his vision. 

'Todd?' He blinks, and the lights resolve themselves into the very real outline of the tree, the furniture, the living room. His mother is standing in the hall opposite, a pack of cigarettes in her hand, watching him with blank concern on her face. 'Are you all right, darling? You're crying.'

Is he? He can't even tell anymore. He drags his sleeve across his eyes and shakes his head. 

'I'm fine,' he says, and chokes on the last word, and starts to sob. 

His family have never been inclined toward physical affection, and there's an awkwardness at first when she sits down next to him and pulls him into her arms, like she's not sure it's the right thing to do. Todd wants to run away, but can't bring himself to, and cries into her blue silk bathrobe till his throat is raw and his eyes sting. He can't tell her about being in love with Neil, but he finds himself babbling out the rest—the guilt about Keating and the paper he'd signed, how it wasn't true, wasn't his fault, and he shouldn't have signed it but he didn't know what to do or say to make it all better. How badly Neil wanted to be an actor, how good at it he was. Not all the words are in the right order, not all of them make sense, and his mother is silent through all of it, just holding him close. 

'It's all right,' she says at last, when Todd's shoulders have stopped shaking and his ragged sobs have eased. Her voice is low, gravelly with years of smoking, but gentle. 'It'll be all right.' He wants desperately to believe her, huddled against her feeling drained and raw, and inexplicable relieved at having expressed his own truth to someone who didn't already understand it. She kisses him on the forehead, as if he were a baby. 'Go get some rest. It'll be better in the morning.' 

He doesn't think it will be better, ever, but there's nothing else he can do, so he goes. 

* * * 

Neil had a bizarre talent for timing. It served him well in acting, but he also seemed blessed with an almost supernatural ability to know just when to appear and what to say. Which is why Todd was less surprised than he could have been, when his birthday found him huddled against a wall on the bridge to the dorms. It was cold; the wind bit through his shirt and stung his cheeks, but it seemed to fit his melancholy. Neil had his coat on; he'd been coming from rehearsal. Todd saw him pass, double-take, and turn back toward him.

'Todd? What's going on?' 

Todd had been missing him all evening, thinking there had to be a better way to spend his seventeenth birthday than sitting alone in the dark with a gift his parents hadn't even thought about. 'Today's my birthday,' he began.

'Is today your birthday? Happy birthday,' Neil said cheerfully, not yet understanding. 'What did you get?'

Todd pushed the desk set toward him. 'My parents gave me this.'

Realisation was dawning; Neil's eyes flickered from the desk set to Todd's face. 'Isn't that the same desk set--'

'Yeah,' Todd said, glanced down at his hands, and sighed. 'They gave me the same thing as last year.'

Even Neil struggled, for a moment, to find the right thing to say, his tongue worrying the inside of his cheek. 'Maybe they thought you needed another one?'

Todd snorted. 'Maybe they weren't thinking anything at all. The funny thing is about this,' he added plaintively, his face turned up to watch Neil's profile in the starlight, 'I didn't even like it the first time.'

Where Todd expected sympathy, he saw the corner of Neil's mouth twitch. 'Todd,' he said slowly, 'I think you're underestimating the value of this desk set.'

Todd stared at him in disbelief. 

'I mean,' Neil continued, 'who would want a football, or a baseball--'

'Or a car,' Todd tossed in, though he'd never actually imagined that would be his birthday present. A guy could always dream.

'Or a car,' Neil agreed, 'if they could have a desk set as wonderful as this? If I were ever going to buy a desk set—twice—I would probably buy this one. Both times.' Todd was laughing a little by then, and already feeling a bit better. It was an effect Neil tended to have on him. 'In fact,' Neil went on, holding the desk set up to the air, 'the shape is—it's rather aerodynamic, isn't it?' Todd watched him pace toward the edge of the wall, hefting the desk set as if testing it for takeoff. 'You can feel it. This desk set wants to fly.' 

Todd was just beginning to see where this was going, and scrambled to his feet. Neil turned to him with a grin of pure mischief, and handed it to him. 'Todd?' 

Todd weighed it in his hands, watching as the last straggler on the ground below disappeared into the school. Neil clasped his hands behind his back and announced solemnly: 

'The world's first unmanned flying desk set.'

Todd threw it as hard as he could off the wall. The package caught and ripped open as it left his hands, and the whole collection tumbled to the ground, blank papers fluttering like swans' wings in the wind. 

'Oh, my.' Neil was still grinning; he rested a hand on Todd's shoulder. 'Well, I wouldn't worry. You'll get another one next year.' 

At that exact moment, Todd didn't even mind, too filled with gratitude for the ability—and the willingness, for that was even more of a miracle—of the brilliant boy next to him to make him feel inifinitely better. They watched the last scraps of paper flutter to the ground, and Neil turned him back toward the dorms. 'Now that we've advanced the cause of science,' he said casually, 'I can think of better ways to celebrate your birthday.' 

Todd stopped for a moment, turned to look at him, his smooth pale face etched against the black velvet curtain of sky. 'I don't know how you always do that.'

And Neil, just for a moment, looked self-conscious. 'Do what?'

'Know just what to say,' Todd answered, and started walking again. 'All the time. It's got to be some otherworldly power. I'd write a poem about it if I were a halfway decent writer. An ode to your sense of timing.'

Neil laughed, nudging him in the door to their room and pressing him flat against the wall. 'Someday,' he said, his face so close to Todd he could smell the lingering taint of the chemical smoke from Henley Hall's fog machine, 'I hope you do.' But then his hands were doing _things_ , and his mouth was hot and far too adventurous, and all thoughts of any kind of poetry but the press of bare skin were wiped from Todd's head.

'Happy birthday, Todd,' Neil whispered, and neither of them spoke again for a while. 

* * * 

Todd used to look forward to Christmas morning. Like so many other children, he would wake early, then lie in trembling eagerness as the clock moved ever so slowly forward, waiting for the moment it would no longer be too early to wake his parents. He and Jeffrey would plan their attack from the hall, then bound into their parents room, their shouts of 'Merry Christmas!' rousing sleepy parents from bed. They'd tumbled downstairs to see what Santa had brought them, and spent most of the day in a sugar-induced ecstatic haze. 

It's been years since they were deemed too old for such nonsense, and by now early morning shouts just make their parents grumble. Todd leaves them to sleep and makes his yawning way downstairs to make them coffee; it'll cut down on the short tempers. 

Jeffrey's already there, pouring himself a cup. 'Morning,' he says, offering it to Todd. 'Want some?'

'No, thanks.' Todd doesn't really drink coffee and isn't sure when his brother started. He opens a cupboard and stares blankly at the boxes of cereal lined in front of him, as if they have answers he doesn't know he's looking for. He gives up and closes it again to find Jeffrey watching him.

'So,' his brother says. It's the first time they've been alone together since Jeffrey went back to Harvard. 'How are you holding up?' 

Todd mumbles something non-committal, but Jeffrey seems to be expecting more, so he says, 'Okay, I guess. It's been a rough couple of weeks.'

'Yeah,' Jeffrey says quietly, 'I guess so. I'd ask how you like Hellton, but it seems like a stupid question. I never pegged you for being such a hellraiser, Todd.'

Todd protests quietly--'I'm really not.' 

Jeffrey ushers him into the dining room, where he sits down out of habit. 'Sure sounds like it, since you almost got expelled in the first term. Dead Poets Society? Standing on your desk and making a scene in front of Nolan?' It's hard to tell if he sounds exasperated or proud. 'I'm sorry about your friend. I didn't really know him, but everybody said he was a really great guy. Smart, too. A sure bet for Harvard pre-med.'

'He was,' Todd says miserably. 'He was all those things.' _And now he's gone._

'It's too bad about Dalton, too,” Jeffrey says, sighing over the top of his coffee cup. 'He'll be okay, though. He's just a crazy enough sonofabitch to survive anything.' The first sounds of wakefulness come from upstairs—their father's coughing, the low hum of their mother's voice—and he looks up to hold Todd's eyes. 'Look, Todd—I know how that place is. It's a whole little world of its own, and the walls close in on you and it's hard to see anything outside it. But it'll be over before you know it, and there's a whole actual world outside it that'll make everything that happens in Hellton ancient history. Which I know doesn't help much now, but it's true. It'll be okay.'

Todd was staring at his brother as if he'd never met him before. 'I thought you loved Welton,' he managed to get out at last. 'You were valedictorian. You seemed happy.'

Jeffrey shrugs. 'Well, yeah. I did like it. But it was a game I learned how to play. I'm glad to be done with it. College is different.'

'Okay,' Todd says, at a complete loss as to how to process or react to this new information. 'Thanks.'

Jeffrey stands, clapping him on the shoulder on his way back to the kitchen. 'Come on, it's Christmas. I know you're in mourning, but let's go try for merry.' And Todd, not knowing what else he could do, follows him. 

* * * 

'Here, villain, drawn and ready, where art thou?' Neil whirled at Todd from behind the trunk of a tree and nearly elbowed him in the face, but he managed to jump back and keep hold of the copy of _Midsummer Night's Dream_ in his hand. 

'I will be with thee straight,' he read dutifully. One of his official roommate duties, it turned out, was to run lines with Neil in basically every spare moment. Neil was nothing if not dedicated, and had his script to hand constantly. Two nights before, Todd had woken up to a low buzz of noise in the middle of the night. Sleepily, he'd opened one eye to see Neil curled in his customary spot on the radiator, studying his lines by moonlight and muttering softly to himself. He hadn't realised Todd was awake, which meant Todd closed his eyes again quickly and just listened to the soft, breathy whisper until he fell asleep again.

He was in so very much trouble, and thought Neil Perry might be both the best and worst thing to ever happen in his life. 

'Follow me, then, to plainer ground!' Neil crowed, practically dancing down the hill toward the dock. 'Ah, I love it!'

Todd, who had been thinking about Neil rather than listening to him, said, 'What, the scene?' It was funny enough, and Neil was good at it; Puck had been given more lines when Mustardseed had come down with the chicken pox. 

'No,' Neil protested, 'acting! Acting's got to be one of the most wonderful things in the world.' He bent down, swiping up a fallen branch from the ground and swinging it idly. 'Think about it. Most people, if they're lucky, get to lead half an exciting life. If I get the parts, I could lead _dozens_ of great lives!' He launched himself toward Todd, brandishing the stick like a sword. 'To be or not to be!' 

Before Todd could respond, or do anything more than stumble away out of reach and nearly fall down the bank, Neil leapt into the air with a loud cry of glee. 'For the first time in my life,' he declared, 'I feel completely alive!' And then, as quickly as if he hadn't just been going insane, his voice dropped back to a normal volume and he thumped Todd in the shoulder. 'You should come to rehearsal.' 

The shift was so abrupt that Todd, even with a rapidly developing obsession with watching Neil's moods, couldn't quite follow it. 'I should?'

'Yes!' Neil declared, still waving the stick at him. 'It's the best! I know they need people to run the lights and stuff.'

That a part of Todd's mind was even considering giving into this mad suggestion was clear evidence that he was going completely insane. 'I don't think--'

'Come on!' Neil kept on talking, barely registering that Todd had even opened his mouth. 'There are girls. The girl who plays Hermia is incredible.'

And suddenly, Todd was very sure he didn't want to go along with Neil to a play rehearsal at a girls' school with an incredible Hermia, but he forced something past the lump in his throat anyway. 'What's she look like?' 

Instead of answering, Neil was actually silent for a full three seconds. Todd, who was watching very carefully while pretending he wasn't, thought he saw genuine surprise flicker across Neil's face, but he could have imagined it. And then Neil was Neil again, bounding even as he deflected. 'What? You're not coming. Forget it.' Todd was staring at him, but he just kept talking, and thumped at the playbook. 'Forget it! go back, go back.'

Todd shook his head in bewilderment and found his place again. 'Yea, art thou there.'

It was Neil, this time, who looked distracted. 'What?'

Todd repeated himself. 'Yea, art thou there?'

Neil leapt at him, cackling. 'Put more into it!' he shouted.

There was no question about it. Neil Perry was actually going to drive Todd insane. He flung his arms out, barely keeping hold of the book, spinning in a wide circle as he shouted at the top of his lungs, 'YEA, ART THOU THERE?'

'That's it, that's it,' Neil managed to get out through his laughter, before his answering line. 'Follow my voice, we'll try no manhood here!' he called, giddily swinging the stick at Todd, who had no real choice but to defend himself by pummeling Neil with the book.

'Hey! Abuse! Abuse of Shakespeare!' Neil whooped, so Todd rolled his eyes and tackled him. They both tumbled onto the wharf, the stick went flying, and the book slipped out of Todd's hand. He reached for it before it slid into the water, but momentum kept him going, and one foot had splashed off the side before Neil managed to grab him and haul him back from the edge. 

He was very close. Todd was gripping the playbook as if it were surgically attached to his fingers. At least a near-death experience—well, near-dunking, but the water was _cold_ \--would explain why he was breathing so hard. 

'Uh. Thanks,' he mumbled. 

'No problem,' Neil said, still holding onto Todd's coat and looking as if there was more he wanted to say. Todd waited for him to say it, feeling increasingly confused, not to mention aware of the cold water soaking through his sock and trouser leg. Actually he was grateful for the cold foot, because it kept him distracted from just how very close Neil was.

Finally he managed, 'Neil? Everything okay?'

'Fine,' Neil said, once again breezily conversational. 'I was just thinking.'

So was Todd, but probably, he thought, not about the same thing. '...About what?'

'About,' Neil began, and then shook his head. 'Forget it.' He let go of Todd's coat and started to roll back, but then changed his mind again, grabbed Todd by the collar, and kissed him. 

It was, Todd realised later, a perfect demonstration of Einstein's theory of general relativity, because the soft brush of Neil's lips, which actually took barely more than a second, seemed like a very long time. He froze, unable to react even when Neil pulled away, searching his face for something Todd didn't know how to give. 

It clearly wasn't enough, because Neil let go of him and pulled away, clambering awkwardly to his feet.

'Neil—' Todd managed, and even that felt like one of the trials of Hercules just to get the word past his lips. 

Neil wasn't looking at him, was looking everywhere _except_ at him. 'Forget it,' he said. 'Let's go back in, you're wet.'

'No,' Todd stammered, finally finding the ability to push himself upright, squelchy shoe and all. 'I mean, yes, we should, but—I mean—please--'

Neil did look at him then, though it was really just a bewildered stare. His voice was a little patient, a little frustrated, a little hopeful, all at once. 'What are you trying to say, Todd?' 

Todd looked firmly down at his shoes and whispered--'Again?' 

Neil slung an arm around Todd's shoulders and led him back up the bank. 'When we get inside,' he said. 

Todd spent the next several minutes just processing, before he asked--'Hermia's really incredible?' He didn't mean for it to sound quite so plaintive.

Neil sighed. 'An incredible _actress_ , Todd,' he said, and just steered him back toward their room.

* * * 

Charlie gets packed off to Braden military school almost as soon as the New Year's drinks are empty. He calls once before he goes, but it's clear there's someone in the room listening, and he can't say much except that he'll miss them all, and promises to write. Todd wishes him luck.

'You can write a poem for me,' Charlie suggests, his voice lowering. 'Something like, Nuwanda in Moloch. Maybe a sweaty-toothed madman can smother me with a blanket and put me out of my misery.'

'You don't think you're going to be miserable enough, you want to add my poetry to it?' Todd counters, wondering why Charlie, why anybody, thinks he'll ever be able to write a decent poem about anything. 'Sure, I guess. I'll send it to you.'

'And the other one,' Charlie says, loftily, in the tone of someone used to being obeyed. 'You did write it, didn't you?'

Much like his suicide note, Todd's started a poem for Neil half a dozen times, and thrown them all away. 'Not yet.'

'Well, do it. And send it to me.' Todd pretends to himself not to understand why he agrees. After he hangs up, he goes back to his room and gets out a fresh sheet of blank paper. He stares at it, empty-headed, till his eyes start to cross. At last he flops back onto the bed and closes his eyes, trying to summon up whatever inspiration Keating had managed to pull out of him. _What do you see?_ But all he sees is Neil, curled up on the radiator with a blanket around his shoulders, murmuring to himself in the moonlight.

Line by line, he writes what he sees every time he closes his eyes.

* * * 

Todd had actually written a poem. It was awful, opening with the cringeworthy lines--

_We are dreaming of a new day  
but a new day isn't coming._

He would actually, honestly, rather die painfully than read that poem, or any other, out in front of his entire class. What little confidence he had was only slightly bolstered by Knox' miserable attempt at a love sonnet or Hopkins' pointedly dismissive soliloquy, 'the cat sat on the mat.' Todd was perfectly aware that he couldn't even manage that level of disengagement. He was prepared for a lower grade, or demerits, or writing extra essays. He should have known Keating would go for none of those options. No, instead Todd was going to stand up in front of a class full of people who already knew he hadn't done his homework and sound a barbaric yawp. 

By the time Keating's hands were covering his eyes and he'd admitted to uttering the words 'sweaty-toothed madman,' he'd submitted to the idea of total humiliation. Since the earth was apparently going to be uncooperative and refuse to swallow him up before this ordeal ended, he might as well just give in and get it over with. Todd and embarrassment were, after all, old friends. 

And there was a part of him that had really wanted to do well. His conversation with his infuriating but captivating roommate had been haunting him since it occurred—Neil had accused him of finding this whole class meaningless. He didn't find it meaningless, just frightening. It wasn't that he didn't want to be brave.

The image he described was actually a nightmare. It was fresh in his mind, because it had only been a few days since Neil, up late practising his lines for the play, had noticed his writhing and woken him up from it. The truths that covered his face were inescapable, terrifying. The friends he was beginning to feel were accepting him would soon tire of him. He was feeling things for his roommate that no good boy should ever feel. The powerful play might go on, but Todd Anderson would never contribute a line, let alone a verse. He gasped out his fears in a shaking voice, and felt Keating's hands drop from his shoulders. He opened his eyes as the last echoes of his own words rang in his ears, trying to catch his breath, and saw his teacher kneeling on the floor, hands over his heart, gazing at him. 

And he saw Neil staring at him too, with a rapt look in his eyes that said _I knew it._

He started to clap, and Todd managed, just barely, to smile.

* * *

Todd gets back to Welton to find Cameron's things moved into his room. Rage bubbles up inside him and he wants to throw it all out the window, but since he hasn't actually become Charlie over Christmas break, he just throws himself onto his bed and tries to read the chapter for history he's been putting off. He stays that way even after he can feel the tension, the prickle-in-the-back of the neck feeling that means his new roommate has come in.

'How was your Christmas?' Cameron asks, awkward while trying to pretend it isn't. Todd ignores him.

'It was kind of awkward at home,' Cameron goes on, sounding a little desperate. 'A lot of questions, you know?'

Todd keeps his eyes on his book. 'What answers did you give them?' It sounds bitter, and he doesn't try to stop it. 

'I,' Cameron begins, sinking down onto Neil's bed. He takes a deep breath and starts again. 'I don't know. Look, Todd, I don't want this to be awkward all year for us, too--'

'You don't?' Todd slams the book shut, the backs of his eyes stinging. 'Then maybe you shouldn't have got your last roommate expelled.' Cameron's staring at him, not used to outbursts from shy Todd Anderson, but he doesn't offer a defense. Todd glares at him. 'Just don't talk to me. That's your side of the room, this is mine. I'll leave you alone, you leave me alone.'

Cameron's face falls, but he had to know what would happen when he got back. 'Okay,' he says, defeated. Todd feels a swell of triumph, and a little bit of guilt. But he thinks he's already going to be miserable for the rest of the year, and can't bring himself to try to make Richard Cameron's life any easier. He opens the history book again, doing his best to ignore the very much not-Neil presence on the other side of the room, and scribbles the word _prolepsis_ in the margin of a page.

* * * 

Neil had come home crowing about how he was going to be an actor, which had seemed to Todd at the time like an exercise in self-destruction. Neil's father hadn't even let him keep the extracurriculars he'd already agreed to; it seemed unlikely he'd agree to a new and unexpected one. 

Neil hadn't appreciated his advice. 'Jesus, Todd!' he'd interrupted, throwing his hands in the air. 'Whose side are you on?' Todd, stunned and shamed into silence, said nothing, and Neil let the moment pass and asked him an innocuous question about coming to a Dead Poets meeting. But he was agitated, and where he usually gave Todd's shyness a pass, this time it clearly frustrated him. 

'Nothing Mr Keating has to say means shit to you, does it?' he'd accused. Todd, who hung on their English teacher's every word as if it held all the valuable secrets of the very cosmos, just stared at him.

'What's that supposed to mean?' 

'You're in the club!' Neil growled, ignoring completely the part where he'd all but dragged Todd into it. 'Being in the club means being stirred up by things! You look about as stirred up as a cesspool!' 

This was it, then; the beginning of the rejection Todd had been expecting since he arrived. 'So you want me out?'

Neil swung himself up from the window and stood over him. 'No. I want you in. But being in means you've got to do something, not just say you're in.' 

'Well—Neil--' Todd stumbled over his words, fidgeted with his sleeves. 'I appreciate this concern, but I—I'm not like you.' To his surprise, Neil was still listening by the time he got it all out; he hadn't even moved. 'You—you say things, and people listen. I'm not like that.'

Neil's voice was oddly gentle, a contrast to the irritation of a moment ago. 'Don't you think you could be?' 

'No!' Todd was sure of it, even though he immediately tried to temporise. 'I—I don't know, but that's not the point. The point is that there's nothing you can do about it, so you can just butt out. I can actually take care of myself just fine. All right?' 

Whenever Todd thought he had delivered a reasonable speech, Neil insisted on flipping his expectations on end. He was quiet for a moment, as if considering everything Todd had said. 

And then he said, 'No.'

Todd stared at him. 'What do you mean, no?'

A smile came to Neil's face that all but stopped Todd's heart. 'No.' And before Todd could muster a response, Neil grabbed his notebook out of his hand and raced to the other side of the room, waving it in the air.

'Give me—Neil! Neil, give it back!' Todd leapt to his feet, jumping onto Neil's bed after him and praying he didn't actually _look_ at it.

His prayers weren't answered. 'We are dreaming of a--' Neil began, though that was as far as he got before his own waving the pages around stopped him. 'Poetry! I'm being chased by Walt Whitman!' He must have caught sight of Todd's desperation, because he tossed the notebook down, laughing, as the door opened. 'Okay, okay!'

Cameron stuck his head in, stared at them, and shook his head. 'What are you guys doing? Have you seen this chemistry--' he began, waving a notebook at them. But that was as far as he got before Neil snatched it out of his hand and was off again, with Todd and Cameron both chasing after him, shouting. By the time Charlie had joined them, hopping around the room in circles with a bongo drum, the situation had reached a pinnacle of silliness, and Todd was sure of two immortal, perfect truths.

He was in the club. 

And he would do pretty much anything Neil Perry ever asked him.

* * * 

The new English teacher is all right—young and a bit flighty, and teaches straight out of the book. He's probably been warned thoroughly about the perils of attempting to spark independent thought in Welton teenagers. He talks about metaphor and allusion, and looks slightly spooked every time it appears he might be called upon to venture an opinion. Knox tells Todd in private that Nolan must have scared him good. 

They don't try to keep the Dead Poets alive. With Neil and Charlie gone, and the administration watching them for signs of rebellion, there's no point. Todd spends as little time as possible in his room, and a good deal more sitting on the bridge with Knox. He never did get Chris—she told him after the play that she'd really rather he did bow out, and he kept his word, but he pines for her constantly. Since Todd's still pretty much pining for Neil all the time too, it works for them; they sit in an occasionally-broken silence and never talk about what's bothering either of them. Knox says once, staring out over the lake as the frost is finally beginning to fade, that he thinks law school won't be that bad. Todd tries to picture him in court, with that affable, distracted way he has, and can't really imagine it, but wishes him luck anyway. 

A letter from Charlie arrives, reading more like code than news. He talks casually enough about Braden, his new roommate, and fond but innocent memories of Welton, and it all seems to Todd like there's a whole other level to read it on. Part of a page from a book is ripped in half and folded inside with a scrap of poem on it--

_I lie on my back at midnight_  
_hearing the marvelous strange chime_  
_of the clocks, and know it's mid-_  
_night and in that instant the whole_  
_world swims into sight for me_

and scribbled along the edge-- _You promised. -N._

Todd tucks it into his pocket, and starts to write. 

When inspiration hits, it's because he gives up looking where he thinks he's supposed to find it. He stops trying to write about Neil's death, about absence, about loss. He pens short lines about the future that was meant to be, and for some of them still might. Knox is in a courtroom, but Chris waits for him when he gets home. Meeks he places in Oxford's dreaming spires, translating Latin and bewitching local girls; Pitts becomes a Colossus of engineering. For Charlie's fate he leaves an open space and a line about the wail of a saxophone; he can fill that in himself. 

Neil he puts onstage, of course. His life, Todd writes, is like a star; even after its fire goes out the light keeps shining on earth. And Todd, the recipient of the courage that came with that light, his face turned up to the night sky, spends the final lines at his side. 

He titles it _Prolepsis_ , a word for speaking of the future as a thing already completed, and sends it to Charlie—and in a flash of daring, to Keating, too, who's gone back to London. It's free verse, a scattering of images, more _Sunflower Sutra_ than _Kubla Khan_. A flash forward—to a future imagined, if not a future realised. 

He gets back a card from Keating—just a few lines, but the envelope is opened before it ever gets to him so he can understand why. There's a short note—hello, thank you for sending me the poem to look at. It closes with a line from Shakespeare, which seems like the most fitting thing Todd can think of.

_So long lives this, and this gives life to thee._

**Author's Note:**

> Dear Kiitos! I know you expressed some small preference for gen, but the characters were simply determined to fall in love with each other regardless. Other than that inevitability, I tried to give you basically everything on your list of 'likes', or at least as much as I could stuff in. Which is possibly a little over-ambitious for a single story, but it was good fun and I hope very much you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed making it for you. Happy Yuletide!
> 
> Credits: Scenes and sections of dialogue liberated blatantly from the film or its deleted scenes. Appearances by Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream, Sonnet XVIII), Allen Ginsberg (Howl, Sunflower Sutra), Walt Whitman (O Captain! My Captain!) and Jack Kerouac (Daydreams for Ginsberg).


End file.
